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I grinned. “Like I said, make safe decisions. Are you going to clean my room before you leave tonight?”
Danielle gave me a sorry look, wrinkling her nose. “I would, but I really need to shave everything and put on my special lotion. I’ll clean it up tomorrow. Promise. Just sleep in my bed tonight because I don’t plan on coming home.” Flashing me a grin, she grabbed the shoes and sauntered to the bathroom.
Sinking back onto the mattress, I took a look at all the clothes sprawled around me. I practically lived in dress pants and blazers now. Picking up a skirt, I fingered the hem and took a shuddering breath. The last time I wore this, I was about to give an oral presentation in front of my class and professor. Brendan knew that I wasn’t great with public speeches and helped to make me feel less nervous.
“Try imagining them all naked,” he whispered in my ear as he slammed me up against the wall. Hooking a finger over the waistband of my panties, he yanked them down and curved that same finger inside me until I was panting.
“I don’t think this is what people have in mind when they say that,” I moaned. He was going to wrinkle my skirt, but I didn’t even care. “Brendan, please.” I clawed at his pants until he chuckled and unzipped them for me.
“We have to be fast. I was going to be late but… oh god, yes.” He slid inside me, and suddenly, I wasn’t nervous at all about my presentation. I just needed this.
I just needed him.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved the clothes on the floor. I was not that girl anymore, and I refused to spend the night walking down memory lane.
Brendan was my ex-husband for a reason, and I was never going to have to see him again.
CHAPTER TWO
Brendan
Snagging the keys from the antique table sitting in the foyer of my childhood home, I tossed them in the air and caught them with a quick, frustrated swipe of my hand. After tossing them into the bowl I used for such things, I rifled through the mail that had piled up on the table in my absence, then rifled through it again. Damn. I still couldn’t find the notes I needed.
“Kim,” I yelled. When she didn’t immediately answer, I narrowed my eyes and yelled again.
Sashaying into the doorway, my sister cocked her eyebrow. There was no mistaking us for anything but siblings. We shared the same dark hair and the same blue eyes. All traits that we got from our father, Jackson Ward. Our mother had been blonde and petite and soft-spoken. There was nothing soft-spoken about Kim.
“You bellowed?” she asked in a deliberately bored tone.
Sighing, I rubbed my temples. “Why is all the mail on the table?”
She propped her fists on her hips. “Because the last time you went to a horse auction, I tried to organize the mail like a sane person, and you got upset.”
“I got upset because you threw away an important letter.”
“And I told you that I never got that letter,” she snapped back. “So this time, it’s all there on display for you to sort yourself.”
Gritting my teeth, I tapped on the table. “There was a note right here when I left.”
“I’m sure it’s still there.”
As she sauntered to the refrigerator, I half sighed and half growled. Four years my junior, Kim always had an attitude, but things had only gotten worse since our father died two weeks ago. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
“What would I want to say to you?”
I bit back the urge to yell. “Maybe you could explain why you’re so upset with me?”
“Upset?” She blinked in mock innocence as she pulled out a bottle of beer. “Why would I be upset? I mean, you waited three whole days after burying Dad before you left for a week to go look at horses. And you’re leaving again two hours after getting back to talk about a business deal that Dad didn’t even want. Why would I be upset about that?”
“It’s ten o’clock in the morning, Kim.” I gave a pointed look at the bottle in her hand. “You’re not seriously going to drink that, are you?”
She turned it up, drinking most of it in one long swallow. When she was finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, giving me an I dare you to say something else eyebrow raise. “I’m an adult, Brendan. I can drink whenever I want. Oh wait, that’s right. You still think I’m a kid. I guess Dad did too.”
If we treated her like a kid, it was because she acted like one. “If this is about the fact that my name is now on the deed for the ranch, then—”
